Spoilers Alert:
In the US remake of the Scandinavian critics’ favorite “Force Majeure”, a family once again has to deal with the father’s alleged misconduct when a huge avalanche hits them. Nat Faxon and Jim Rash follow the scene DOWNHILL However, it’s a touch different – and therefore delivers a much better film. We reveal more about this in our review.
One evening, Pete and Billie meet the pushy Charlotte (Miranda Otto), who really wants to make contact.
How Jim Rash and Nat Faxon still bow to the original, despite their successful shift in accent, becomes clear again and again when the two and cameraman Danny Cohen respectively (“Florence Foster Jenkins”) not just adopt individual images such as the avalanche from “Force Majeure” and set them to a similarly dominant background music, but also specifically recite sequences of scenes. This also includes parts of the final. The makers never deny that their film is actually based on another. Of course, the moments in which the two deliberately break away from the template are still more exciting. It’s not just the final shot that’s much more convincing due to its ambiguity than the clearly dark ending of “Force Majeure”. The more complex figure drawing of the couple also makes “Downhill” a much more exciting film. Instead of concentrating on prefabricated gender patterns in the debate, pushing Pete into the role of perpetrator and Billie into the role of victim, both have a debate on equal terms, as both are not free from weaknesses and the question is whether Pete is really a coward or not acted only in emotion, is diversified much more broadly. And so “Downhill” is ultimately the much better film. Even if there is a lot more laughter here than in Ruben Östlund’s original.
Conclusion: Nat Faxon and Jim Rash transfer Ruben Östlund’s contentious marital drama “Force Majeure” to the biting comedy genre and deliver not only the much more entertaining but above all the more successful film, as they are not satisfied with simple role clichés and also draw their characters in a more complex way .
“Downhill” is already available to stream in the USA.
